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Ronald Ross - Biographical

Ronald
Ross was born on May 13, 1857, as the son of Sir C.C.G. Ross,
a General in the English army. He commenced the study of medicine
at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1875; entered the
Indian Medical Service in 1881. He commenced the study of malaria
in 1892. In 1894 he determined to make an experimental
investigation in India of the hypothesis of Laveran and Manson
that mosquitoes are connected with the propagation of the
disease. After two and a half years' failure, Ross succeeded in
demonstrating the life-cycle of the parasites of malaria in
mosquitoes, thus establishing the hypothesis of Laveran and
Manson. In 1899 he joined the Liverpool School of Tropical
Medicine under the direction of Sir Alfred Jones. He was
immediately sent to West Africa to continue his investigations,
and there he found the species of mosquitoes which convey the
deadly African fever. Since then the School has been unremitting
in its efforts to improve health, and especially to reduce the
malaria in West Africa. Ross' researches have been confirmed and
assisted by many distinguished authorities, especially by
Koch, Daniels, Bignami, Celli,
Christophers, Stephens, Annett, Austen, Ruge, Ziemann, and many
others.

In 1901 Ross was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of
Surgeons of England and also a Fellow of the Royal Society, of
which he became Vice-President from 1911 to 1913. In 1902 he was
appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of Bath by His
Majesty the King of Great Britain. In 1911 he was elevated to the
rank of Knight Commander of the same Order. In Belgium, he was
made an Officer in the Order of Leopold II.

In 1902 a movement was set on foot to commemorate the valuable
services rendered to the School of Tropical Medicine by its
originator and Chairman, Sir Alfred Jones, by founding a Chair of
Tropical Medicine in University College to be connected with the
School. The movement was met with enthusiastic support, and an
amount of money was quickly collected sufficient to found
«Sir Alfred Jones' Chair of Tropical Medicine». Ross
was appointed to the Professorship in 1902 and retained the Chair
until 1912, when he left Liverpool, and was appointed Physician
for Tropical Diseases at Kings College Hospital, London, a post
which he held together with the Chair of Tropical Sanitation in
Liverpool. He remained in these posts until 1917, when he was
appointed Consultant in Malariology to the War Office, his
service in this capacity, and in special connection with epidemic
malaria then occurring on combatant troops, being recognized by
his elevation to the rank of Knight Commander, St. Michael and
St. George, in 1918. He was later appointed Consultant in Malaria
to the Ministry of Pensions. In 1926 he assumed the post of
Director in Chief of the Ross Institute and Hospital of Tropical
Diseases and Hygiene, which had been created by admirers of his
work, and he remained in this position until his death. He was
also a President of the Society of Tropical Medicine. His Memoirs
(London, 1923) were «inscribed to the people of Sweden and
the memory of Alfred Nobel».

During this active career, Ross' interest lay mainly in the
initiation of measures for the prevention of malaria in different
countries of the world. He carried out surveys and initiated
schemes in many places, including West Africa, the Suez Canal
zone, Greece, Mauritius, Cyprus, and in the areas affected by the
1914-1918 war. He also initiated organizations, which have proved
to be well established, for the prevention of malaria within the
planting industries of India and Ceylon. He made many
contributions to the epidemiology of malaria and to methods of
its survey and assessment, but perhaps his greatest was the
development of mathematical models for the study of its
epidemiology, initiated in his report on Mauritius in 1908,
elaborated in his Prevention of Malaria in 1911 and
further elaborated in a more generalized form in scientific
papers published by the Royal Society in 1915 and 1916. These
papers represented a profound mathematical interest which was not
confined to epidemiology, but led him to make material
contributions to both pure and applied mathematics. Those related
to «pathometry» are best known and, 40 years later,
constitute the basis of much of the epidemiological understanding
of insect-borne diseases.

Through these works Ross continued his great contribution in the
form of the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the
mosquito, but he also found time and mental energy for many other
pursuits, being poet, playwright, writer and painter.
Particularly, his poetic works gained him wide acclamation which
was independent of his medical and mathematical standing.

He received many honours in addition to the Nobel Prize, and was
given Honorary Membership of learned societies of most countries
of Europe, and of many other continents. He got an honorary M.D.
degree in Stockholm in 1910 at the centenary celebration of the
Caroline Institute. Whilst his vivacity and single-minded search
for truth caused friction with some people, he enjoyed a vast
circle of friends in Europe, Asia and America who respected him
for his personality as well as for his genius.

Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in 1889. They had two sons,
Ronald and Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Sylvia. His
wife died in 1931, Ross survived her until a year later, when he
died after a long illness, at the Ross Institute, London, on
September 16, 1932.

This autobiography/biography was written
at the time of the award and first
published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel.
It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.